


Spangled

by brainwane



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Astronomy, Gen, Sonnets, Wistful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 07:55:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3602292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brainwane/pseuds/brainwane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the 1940s, if you looked up from Brooklyn at night, you could see the stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spangled

**Author's Note:**

> From the point of view of Steve Rogers between the events of "The Avengers" and "The Winter Soldier".

A roof, the noise, a starry summer night:  
So normal as to cause no comment, then.  
A black sky, spangled thoroughly with light  
That boys might gaze at, yearning to be men  
  
Who fought the darkness. They could do it. East,  
In Europe, or beneath the Arctic ice.  
Then he was chosen, brought up from the least,  
Reborn, again, again. And what's the price?  
  
He cannot see the stars at night. They're gone.  
New York is light-polluted, never dark  
Enough to tell the midnight from the dawn.  
But children look at him, and Tony Stark,  
  
Their eyes alight with wonder, beyond sense,  
The gas of wonder sparking like a flint.  
The galaxies fall down, collect, condense  
Onto a metal shield, one star aglint.  
  
    He is their sky. This is why he was healed.  
    He girds himself to live, and fight for SHIELD.

**Author's Note:**

> I was showing my friend [Elisa](https://twitter.com/madfashionista) the ["something doesn't smell right"](http://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/508549.html?thread=21518981#cmt21518981) thread and [cap-chronism](https://cap-chronism.dreamwidth.org/), and she reminded me that also Steve Rogers would be surprised that he can't see the stars at night. So I wrote this sonnet.


End file.
